Plato

by Roy Jackson

  There was considerable social etiquette involved, which were all part of a test to demonstrate your skills in citizenship; even drinking wine from the broad and shallow cup called a kylix was quite a difficult process when reclining, and would result in most of the drink dripping over your tunic if you are a novice or have drunk too much. Symposia frequently ended up being drunken, rowdy affairs despite the presence of (perhaps because of) the symposiarch; the one chosen among those present to be in charge of the evening, including deciding how many units of watered-down wine would be drunk that evening (in Plato’s Symposium a more democratic process seems to be involved in which all agree not to drink too much on this occasion). Aside from the drink, the entertainment and the opportunity for older men to be in close proximity with younger men (and vice versa), it was really meant to be a place for intellectual stimulation and networking. They were the gatherings of the ‘great and the good’ that could meet privately, behind closed doors, like an ancient form of masonic lodge, and could last well into the night and, indeed, there are accounts of them lasting up to 36 hours!

  At this particular symposium we encounter a number of historical individuals. Aside from Socrates himself, none of those present would be described as philosophers: some are Sophists, others are artists (poets, tragedians, etc.) and so when each talks of love, and praises the god of love, Eros, they inevitably fail to get to grips with what Love truly is, as one might expect from a true philosopher, but, rather, they perhaps reveal more about themselves, for when we talk about love, we often end up talking about ourselves.

  Of those present we have Agathon, of course, being the guest of honour, although all of his works have unfortunately been lost. Socrates sits next Agathon, and it is perhaps no coincidence that the Greek word agathon means ‘good’, and so Socrates is sitting himself next to ‘the good’ here. In addition, much of this dialogue is about what constitutes the ‘good’: the good speech, the good lover and so on. Aside from Agathon’s appearance in Symposium with his lifelong lover Pausanias (see Chapter 8) they also both appear together in Plato’s Protagoras. Aristotle also mentions Agathon in his work Poetics, commenting on Agathon’s play Anthos as being particularly innovative for its time by introducing original characters, against the orthodoxy of using mythological subjects.

  Another important character who makes a drunken appearance is Alcibiades, of which more will be said later. Another figure present is the comic playwright Aristophanes. A large number of his plays have survived complete and one in particular, The Clouds, presents a caricature of Socrates (and, hence, this makes the play our oldest source for reference to the philosopher) that caused Plato (in his Apology) to cite this work as contributing to Socrates’ execution because it helped to fuel a public mistrust of Socrates. However, in Symposium, Aristophanes seems to get on well with Socrates, even though this would have been after The Clouds had been performed.

  In terms of how this dialogue is constructed it is extremely complex, starting, as it does, as an account of the symposium by the narrator Apollodorus to an unnamed friend. However, Apollodorus himself was not at the symposium (he was, he says, only a child at the time) and so he is narrating a report given to him by Aristodemus which, in turn, Apollodorus has recounted to Glaucon! Aristodemus was apparently at the party and ‘one of the people most in love with Socrates at the time’. (Plato, Symposium, 173b). This approach of hearing a report from a ‘friend of a friend’ is perhaps a deliberate strategy on Plato’s part, for what it demonstrates, given that the topic is love, is just how difficult it is to get to the truth on such matters; one is always ‘removed’ and distant in some way.

  What makes Symposium unusual in the Platonic corpus is that we are not confronted here with the usual cut and thrust of Socratic dialectic. Instead we have a series of speeches on love by three different characters that are all capable of existing independently of each other, although Socrates’ speech, as the final of the four, does perform as a response to what has been said previously.

  The first three speeches

  The first three speeches are, in some way or other, inferior to what is to then follow, but they are important because they possess a common thread in being concerned primarily about physical love, about the body, and, consequently, fail to grasp a great, more metaphysical, understanding of love.

  PHAEDRUS’ SPEECH

  Having decided that the guests would only ‘drink as much as was pleasant’ (Plato, Symposium 176e) and to send away the flute player, the topic chosen was due to Phaedrus having, on previous occasions, lamented the lack of eulogies to love. Phaedrus, therefore, is selected to provide the first (and, in this case, the shortest) speech on this subject. A eulogy, or encomium, is a standard rhetorical form that contains a set pattern that should include the genealogy of the subject, its benefits and how it compares to other subjects.

  ‘It’s only lovers who are willing to die for someone else.’

  Plato, Symposium, 179b

  The above quote, said by Phaedrus, is perhaps his key point, hence the emphasis on why it is of particular benefit, i.e. it encourages us to be virtuous by at least being prepared to courageously sacrifice ourselves for another, while some might argue that love is selfish.

  PAUSANIAS’ SPEECH

  The second speech that is reported (there were others, but Aristodemus could not remember them) is given by Pausanias, which contains more argument than Phaedrus’. Pausanias states that Phaedrus has presented a somewhat simplistic view of love and therefore it is easy to praise its virtues. Rather, it is not a single thing and, consequently, not all kinds of love can be seen as equally praiseworthy.

  ‘Every activity in itself is neither right nor wrong. Take our present activity: we could be drinking or singing or discussing. None of these is right in itself; the character of the activity depends on the way it is done. If it is done rightly and properly, it is right; if it is not done properly, it is wrong. So not every type of loving and Love is right and deserves to be praised, but only the type that motivates us to love rightly.’

  Plato, Symposium, 181a

  As readers of this book will by now be aware, homosexual relations in Athens were a common enough practice, but here Pausanias (and, indirectly, Plato) is expressing the concern that was raised in the dialogue Phaedrus by Lysias (see Chapter 8): that sexual love that is purely of a physical nature – whether it is homosexual or heterosexual – is not ‘true love’ but what he calls ‘Common Love’, contrasting this with ‘Heavenly Love’ which, though possessing a physical element too, also involves rational, educational and ethical development. This is the kind of love that Socrates praises in Phaedrus.

  ERYXIMACHUS’ SPEECH

  It was then Aristophanes’ turn to speak but, ‘as it happened, he was having an attack of hiccups, from overeating or some other cause, and couldn’t speak’ (Plato, Symposium, 185c), so Eryximachus took his place in the queue. He extends the view of Pausanias to talk about love between not just human beings:

  ‘Love is not only expressed in the emotional responses of human beings to beautiful people, but in many other types of response as well: in the bodily responses of every kind of animal, in plants growing in the Earth, in virtually everything that exists. I feel sure it’s from medicine, my own area of expertise, that I’ve realized how great and powerful a god Love is, and how his power extends to all aspects of human and divine life.’

  Plato, Symposium, 186a-b

  As the quote above points out, Eryximachus is a medical doctor (who, before his speech, gives advice to Aristophanes on how to stop his hiccups; advice that one still receives today such as holding your breath for a long time or gargling with some water) and presents here an almost ‘new age’ (which, in fact, in many respects is ‘old age’) vision of cosmic love.

  The speech of Aristophanes

  Aristophanes who, remember, was not liked by Plato, is presented as a character who is very much in touch with the sensual world. He likes to gorge himself on foo
d and drink (hence his hiccups), to play around, to joke and so on. In many respects, he possesses all of those characteristics in a human being that Plato saw as morally sick and even dangerous: Aristophanes’ desire to entertain, after all, resulted in his work The Clouds, with no regard for the consequences for Socrates.

  Having overcome his hiccupping fit, it is now the turn of the comic playwright Aristophanes, who presents a bizarre and comic genealogy of human nature in which, long ago, there were three human genders, the third being a combination of the male and female (androgynous). Also, each human being was spherical (see Chapter 11 on the importance of the sphere as a kind of perfect animal), with four hands, four legs, and, although only one head, two identical faces on a circular neck with four ears. These early humans were so strong they tried to climb up to heaven and attack the gods. The gods did not want to kill off the humans because then they would no longer have a species to honour and make sacrifices to them, so Zeus decided to cut them in half:

  ‘I shall now cut each of them into two; they will be weaker and also more useful to us because there will be more of them. They will walk upright on two legs. If we think they’re still acting outrageously, and they won’t settle down, I’ll cut them in half again so that they move around hopping on one leg.’

  Plato, Symposium, 190d

  Remember, Aristophanes is a comic playwright, and one might wonder what this deliberate fiction has to do with love. Aristophanes tells us that this physical rupture also resulted in great emotional stress, for the two halves longed to be reunited to the extent that this desire and resulting depression resulted in an inability to engage in anything else. Zeus, therefore, moved their genitals round to the front (they were previously at the back of their bodies), which allowed them to have sex which, to some extent at least, relieved them of their desire to become permanently whole with another. Those who are cut from the original androgynous gender result in the male seeking a female; those cut from male genders result in male seeking male; and those cut from the female gender now seek fellow females for sex.

  This is a fascinating and appealing story (for many readers, it stands out more than Socrates’ speech later on) on many levels. Aristophanes wants to stress that this is not ‘just a comedy’ (193b); there is a moral message here too. The human race can only achieve happiness when we are able to fulfil our true nature, which is to find our ‘other half’. In a metaphorical sense, then, happiness is equated with true love for another human being, which is only possible if that other human being is suitable to one’s own character; whether this a heterosexual or homosexual relationship is irrelevant. While it is highly unlikely to find our actual other half, we should aim for as close as possible to this. What Aristophanes is also stressing here is the importance of physical proximity in order to know the ‘other’ which, in turn, helps us to understand ourselves, as opposed to a life of ascetic, celibate existence. It has implications in terms of knowledge and the importance of other people to determine what we can know, how we are to be ethical, and how we are to be happy and self-fulfilled.

  What this myth also tells us is the kind of person Aristophanes was, or at least how Plato wanted to portray him: as someone who is ‘half a man’, as someone who does not feel complete, and does not truly understand himself unless he is engaged in sexual activity. Interestingly, remembering that Aristophanes was a comic writer, this psychological portrayal has frequently been repeated among comedians through history, as the saying ‘tears of a clown’ denotes. The comic seeks for humour as a refuge from one’s self.

  Agathon’s praise of love

  Moving from the comic of Aristophanes, we come to the tragic poet Agathon, and one might expect his speech on love to be tragic in nature. Agathon states that all the previous speeches have focused on what benefits humans have received from love, but none of them have considered the nature of the god of Love, of Eros, himself. Therefore, Agathon gives us a praise of Love, as being the most beautiful, the youngest, the most sensitive, moderate, brave, and so on. After Aristophanes’ comic and entertaining speech, this comes across as somewhat disappointing and not really tragic at all, though full of rhetorical devices and formula. However, remember that Plato always does things with some intention in mind, and the reader is encouraged to consider why this is such an unsatisfactory speech from someone who has, after all, just been awarded first prize for his poetic skills. Plato himself is sceptical as to the value of tragedy (see Chapter 12), which he sees as employing various rhetorical tricks to produce an emotional response, but without really getting at the truth of things; hence Agathon’s speech comes across as mere trickery, which is certainly full of praise, showy, and may well raise an emotional response, but – when looked at more closely – lacks any moral or educational content, rather like some ‘bubble-gum’ music. It is worth mentioning that Agathon is a student of Gorgias (see Chapter 10), and, like his teacher, Agathon reveals the sophistic tendency to say a lot without really saying anything!

  While Agathon’s speech may well follow the correct formula for good rhetoric it, nonetheless, is poorly argued in terms of logic. For instance, he fails to make a distinction between love and desire, although he is not the first to do this. Agathon argues that love is the motivating force behind poetry, as well as the other creative arts, but is this really love? Take this quote by Agathon:

  ‘It was by following where his desire and love led him that Apollo discovered the arts of archery, medicine and prophecy, and this makes Apollo a pupil of Love. In the same way, it makes the Muses pupils of his music, Hephaestus in metalwork, Athena in weaving and Zeus in steering gods and humans.’

  Plato, Symposium, 197a-b

  But what has love got to do with the desire to discover archery or to engage in metalwork? As the previous speeches, this tells more about the speaker on love, than about love itself, and here we have someone who is narcissistic, who is very much in love with himself. His praise of love is really a praise of Agathon.

  Socrates’ speech

  ‘I’m not giving another eulogy of that kind – I couldn’t do it. However I am prepared to tell the truth, if you’d like that, though in my own way, not competing with your speeches, which would make me look ridiculous. So let me know, Phaedrus, whether there’s any need for a speech like that, one which tells the truth about Love, but which uses whatever words and phrases happen to occur to me as I go along.’

  Plato, Symposium, 199a-b

  No one in the symposium is going to refuse Socrates the opportunity to talk, of course, but what Socrates is doing here is stating that his speech will not be covered up in flowery and poetic language (unlike Agathon’s), but will get to the bare-bones of the subject of what love actually is.

  Socrates, in fact, starts by not giving a speech at all but, in typically Socratic fashion, begins by interrogating Agathon. Agathon’s confusion between love and desire is quite understandable, given that the Greek word eros can mean either. Socrates is fully aware of this, and, indeed, starts by connecting these two understandings of the term himself. He gets Agathon to abandon his view that love is beautiful by stating that love is always of something, rather than something in itself. For example (giving Socrates’ own example), a brother is not just a brother, he is a brother of someone. Therefore, a lover isn’t just a lover, he or she is a lover of someone. There is also a motivation involved here, for why do you seek love of another? This is a very important question, which Aristophanes’ myth only examines to a limited extent. Here, Socrates argues that love is a state of deficiency; that is to say, it is lacking in something that it needs. Again, using Socrates’ example, a tall person does not look for tallness, but a small person might. So what does love lack? As love is not itself beautiful, then it lacks beauty, and this is what is needed: love is of beauty.

  It was mentioned earlier that Plato seems to deliberately construct this dialogue with a chain of reporters so as to demonstrate how difficult it is to get to the truth for such a slippery subjec
t as love. Now the chain goes one further back, for the report on Socrates’ speech is now no longer from Socrates at all, at least not directly. As Socrates says himself:

  ‘I’ll try to restate for you the account of Love that I once heard from a woman from Mantinea called Diotima. She was wise about this and many other things… She is also the one who taught me the ways of Love. I’ll report what she said…’

  Plato, Symposium, 201d

  While symposia may not allow women to be physically present for the conversations (only as entertainers, servants or prostitutes), here we have a woman present in the sense of these are her words, as reported by Socrates. So this is not really a speech at all, but a report on a Socratic dialogue that took place between Diotima and Socrates.

  Diotima is a prophetess and so receives divine inspiration, and Socrates sought her out as a guide and a teacher. She says that love is not a god, because gods are perfect, they do not lack anything whereas, as Socrates has already stated, love is a deficiency. Rather, love is something in-between the human and the divine and acts as a bridge between the two. Love is described as full of longing, a longing for truth, knowledge, wisdom, perfection. When we fall in love, we see an image of Perfection, of perfect wisdom, beauty and so on. This is very different from Aristophanes’ notion of love, which is more directed at the lover (in Aristophanes’ case, at himself) seeking to be whole, whereas Diotima sees love as the desire for what is good. This, as the reader will no doubt be aware, relates to the Theory of the Forms; the quest for the Form of the Good, for Beauty itself beyond the realm of the mundane, physical world. Through love we are able to ‘ascend’ to the Realm of the Forms and to move from seeing beauty in a lover, to Beauty Itself. Coupled with this is the quest for immorality, to not be tied to this time-bounded world. We desire to possess the good for eternity and, through sexual reproduction, this provides us with a means for us to ‘carry on’ in some form.